


The Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures

by rowenabyrde



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenabyrde/pseuds/rowenabyrde
Summary: Hermione Granger has a double life. She is the darling of the post-war Wizarding world, perfect and pure and off to a highly respectable start in her Ministry career.For those that know her better, she is also filthy-minded, masochistic, and working with increasing desperation to figure out what might really make her happy.Lucius Malfoy fits dangerously into this equation.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy
Comments: 30
Kudos: 121





	1. A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome to the project that I am writing because I need someplace that isn't my real book to write something filthy. It'll still have a story, because I can't *not*, but if you're not here for the sleaze this may not be your cup of tea.
> 
> Speaking of things that may not be your cup of tea: there will be BDSM mindsets right from the start. If you're concerned that that's OOC... perhaps find different reading. If you're squicked out by that... perhaps find different reading.
> 
> I also think it's important to say right off the bat that nothing in this story will be non-consensual, but that, within the bounds of a BDSM dynamic, consent may not look like it usually would, or might follow in-world prearrangements, etc. I'm not here to discuss or take on the morality of BDSM; just please be reassured that nothing in here will occur against consent.
> 
> All that said, favorites/follows/feedback/etc. are always very much welcome. Enjoy!  
> \---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter One

Hermione Granger knew, when she recognized Lucius Malfoy in a sex club, that she was on the precipice of a very, very bad idea.

Not that she would describe much of what she got up to here as a _good_ idea.

He was wearing a half-mask, a black affair that would have looked silly and Gothic try-hard on a less uncompromising face. But his face was all stone—hard angles and ice-blue eyes. Thin-lipped mouth given so easily to sneers. And it would take a whole lot to make anything look silly on a face like that.

Looking back later, she would acknowledge that she used the mask as an excuse for herself. She created a helpful little fiction that, beyond the scrap of black fabric, she simply couldn’t tell who the tall, hard-faced wizard with the long, platinum-blond hair was. He was just a man. As excuses went, it was decidedly flimsy.

She had every opportunity to avoid him. Granted, she was currently tied in place. But Oliver, bless him, had come along to keep an eye out for her—one of the perks of a friend with benefits who truly lived up both to the benefits and to the friendship. And if she used their signal, he would step over and untie her, or he would very firmly ward off whoever she didn’t want to deal with.

But she didn’t use their signal.

She had been caught by ice-blue eyes that now, she feared very much, might have recognized her too. It wasn’t as if her mask did so much, either, to hide her distinctive mass of brown curls.

Brown curls into which Lucius Malfoy’s fingers slid, a few moments later. He gave her a moment, looking down into her wide eyes. There were rules to how this place worked, and he was clearly familiar with them. When she didn’t signal distress—didn’t say anything at all—the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“What a waste,” he said, and she felt the quiet voice somewhere in the pit of her stomach, “for a pretty thing like you to be sitting here, all unattended.” The words were all slow, considering. “Did someone leave you here?”

Hermione swallowed, and nodded. His eyes were mesmerizing.

“How very cruel. And is he coming back for you, pet? Or she. One shouldn’t assume.”

Hermione thought about it, and nodded again. “He’ll be back later.”

“I see.” Lucius Malfoy’s hand was moving in her hair, fingers tracing down to her neck. “And are you meant to sit and watch? And all laid out as you are. Poor thing.”

She couldn’t have explained how these words were working on her, the subtle motions of his hand in her hair sending thrills all across her. It all had to do with his eyes, somehow, with the way she was getting entirely lost in the dark, level look. “I’m not,” she managed, and she repeated it when he crouched to her level to hear her better: “I’m not meant to watch. I’m here to be useful.”

That made the hand in her hair stop moving. He looked at her for a long moment, a smile almost working its way into his eyes, for all his face didn’t move. “Are you? How interesting.”

Then he stood back up.

The details moved quickly, then, and she was too much along for the ride to quite remember each one of them. She knew that he had unbuttoned his trousers, without hurrying; entirely matter-of-fact. There had been eye contact, long moments where he waited for her to back down, change her mind and summon Oliver. He’d cupped one hand against her face, running a thumb across her lips; and she’d let her mouth open, running her tongue against the pad of his thumb. He’d pulled her jaw further open.

And that, more or less, was how she ended up with Lucius Malfoy’s cock in her mouth in a sex club in Knockturn Alley.

He was, all things considered, not impolite about it. She was all taken up with feeling—the feeling of breathing past him, of her tongue against him, of the way his relentless eye contact was stoking a fire in her belly. There was some pulling of her hair when his hands clenched, some thrusting into her throat when it all reached a crescendo. He kept control, though, enough to spill himself down her rope-bound chest rather than into her mouth, and enough to find his wand and vanish the mess for her afterwards.

He disappeared too quickly. The fingers ruffled her hair. The voice murmured, “You _have_ been useful, pet.” The trousers were buttoned back up. The tall man with the stony face and long blond hair was slipping away, back into the crowd.

That, it seemed, was that. Oliver asked her how she was, later that night. He probably meant how she was with him, how they were. Given that he’d just finished making her come apart all over the bed back at his flat. “Fine,” she said. “Good.” And her jaw was a little sore, but she thought she meant it.

She chalked the incident up to fever dream, the madness that took hold only in a place and a moment like that. She became a different person in those situations, a wordless and wild little corner of herself, and if that person wanted to do something absurd for a few moments, even if that absurd thing was with someone she wouldn’t even want to _talk_ to in the real world—well. That was the point of having that person.

And so she packed the night, and the masks, and the taste of Lucius Malfoy into a tidy little box, and she filed the box into a tidy little corner of her brain. There to grow dusty forever.

…

Hermione Granger’s life was, to all appearances, a normal and a quiet one. During the day, she went to her very respectable Ministry job, as Junior Undersecretary to the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. There she worked, quietly, with the laws that surrounded what defined magic, and what defined personhood, in Wizarding law. Most of the cases she worked on and the meetings she scheduled were small, and unimportant. Some of them weren’t. Hermione Granger was patient. And her career was off to a very respectable, normal start.

During the nights, she typically went home, drank tea over a book, and went to bed. Sometimes she would go for dinner with friends—Harry, Ron, and Luna were all used to having her round. Sometimes she would go for not-so-much-dinner, with not-so-much-friends. That was currently Oliver’s purview. She learned things about herself, on those evenings. She got to be a bit freer and a bit more full of life. It was a way to let off steam. Oliver was, to all appearances, a respectable, normal young man. And so there was nothing, to anyone that thought they knew Hermione, to indicate that even that corner of her life might be a deviation from the respectable, normal whole.

The box in her mind rattled, sometimes. The box where she kept the memory of her two worlds colliding, of Lucius Malfoy—who belonged in dinner table conversations and newspaper snippets—muttering a soft curse when his thrust met the back of her throat, in the dark side-room of the so-carefully-private club.

She didn’t pay the rattling much mind, though.

Until, as fate would have it, she walked into work one Tuesday morning and arrived, just as a meeting was starting, to find that the meeting involved not just herself, her boss, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, but also an impeccably-dressed, bored-already Lucius Malfoy.

The ice-blue eyes met hers. The ice-blue eyes met hers and, somehow, she was still expected to sit down, open her folder, and take notes. Make intelligent contributions, even.

She must have managed something passable, as her boss didn’t comment, and the blue eyes soon flickered away.

She watched him, throughout the meeting. He was there to talk to them about charity funding, an upcoming gala with her Department’s werewolf initiative at its centre. Lucius Malfoy was a useful person to know in politics, and his stint doing community service and paying reparations had scarcely put a dent in his effectiveness. Harry had forgiven him, when all the details of the blackmail and torture he and his family had endured in the war came to light, and had testified on their behalf. Harry’s word carried a lot of weight. Hermione herself hadn’t been involved; she’d signed her support onto Harry’s letter, she’d refused to go back to Malfoy Manor for any of the interviews, and that had been it.

Lucius Malfoy didn’t really know her. And he was certainly acting like it. His words were all for Kingsley, and for her boss, a balding wizard named Hubert Pendleton. Lucius’s hair was tied back, and the collar of his stiff navy robes came right up underneath his chin. His long, elegant fingers drummed on the table occasionally, when he was thinking out loud.

There was a moment, when he did need to talk to her. “Here,” she was saying, “these are the pledges we’ve already received, from the first mailing. If any of these are what you’re looking for-” and she slid a sheet of parchment towards him.

“Thank you,” he said, and took it, and his eyes met hers. Until they did, she had been talking herself into believing he had never recognized her at that club at all. Or that she had been mistaken herself. Or that he had forgotten.

He hadn’t forgotten.

She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, for the rest of the meeting. There was a white noise, a panic at the edge of her mind—if he remembered, what did that mean? What did he want? What might he say? What might he-

Then Kingsley and Hubert were getting up to leave. Kingsley swept out—always urgent business, with him—and Hubert handed Hermione a sheaf of parchment before trotting off to catch up with the Minister.

She and Lucius Malfoy were in an empty conference room. Alone. She clutched her folders to her chest and stood up. It was all a bit awkward. She knew her face was turning pink. Lucius was already standing, and he stooped to pick up a quill that she’d managed to drop. He offered it to her. “Miss Granger.”

“Thank you,” she managed, her lips dry. “Mr. Malfoy.”

He took two long steps to reach the door before she did. “Allow me.” He was holding it open for her.

She didn’t know how to respond to such utter politeness. It was cold, perhaps even bored. So she tried just to walk past him, her head down. Cheeks burning.

She felt his hand at the small of her back, before she’d quite made it out the door. That specific spot on her lower back, where her skirt waistband hugged in. It might have passed as a polite intimacy, that helping-a-witch-along gesture that would normally irritate her from a wizard. Except that it wasn’t polite. She could feel one of his fingers hooking into the waistband, knuckle against her skin. And, when she stopped walking, his thumb moving up the ridge of her spine.

Gooseflesh erupted all up her arms. She turned her head, and the blue eyes were dark, level.

And she had another very, very bad idea.

“I,” she managed, “am just going this way.” And she walked away, just a few doors down to the loo. She turned to look at him before she went in. She knew how wide her eyes were. Wondered if he’d understood her very, very bad idea.

She put her folders down on the counter next to the sink. Tried to fix her hair. After what felt like minutes but was probably only seconds of suspense, the handle on the door turned, and Lucius Malfoy stepped in. He closed the door behind him, quietly.

Hermione pointed her wand at it. It locked. Then she put her wand down beside the folders.

Lucius was meeting her eyes in the mirror. He took a step closer, and another, and she could feel him against her back.

“Bend over,” he said, “so your elbows are on the counter.”

She did. Her eyelids almost fluttered shut, when his fingers wound into her hair from this new angle. She didn’t want to close her eyes, though, and miss the unfathomable expression in his.

His free hand pulled up her skirt, tucking it into the waistband so the whole rode above her hips. Then he was pushing her knickers down, and she could hear the heaviness of her own breathing.

Moments later, Lucius Malfoy proceeded to fuck her against the sink, mercilessly, until she came with the ragged sort of cry that her throat made all on its own, not thirty yards from her own office.

And Hermione Granger began to admit that she had a problem; and that it was not a remotely normal or respectable one.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione, having recognized her problem, demonstrates no sense of self preservation whatsoever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was overwhelmed by all the positive comments on the first chapter--thanks so much, everyone, and I'm glad you're enjoying this! Feedback continues to be much appreciated.
> 
> This chapter is perhaps a bit short; I wanted to get a little momentum going, before more plot elements start to rear their heads.
> 
> I can't make any promises about how often I can update this--life is insanity at the moment--but I have no intention to drop it; it's fun to write.

Chapter Two

It took Hermione a week to acknowledge that she needed to see him again. There was one moment, on Friday morning, when they crossed paths in a Ministry hallway. He nodded at her, perfectly cordial, and kept walking. He was in conversation with an elderly witch Hermione didn’t really know, though she had the sense the woman was from the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. Hermione kept looking back to check whether _he_ was looking back. He wasn’t.

It took her another week to work up the nerve to actually do anything about it. She ran through all sorts of drafts and half-formed plans. She could invent an excuse for him to come into the office, perhaps something to do with the charity gala. She could find out when his next meeting with Kingsley way, arrange to run into him on the way. She could write him a letter. That seemed the most reasonable, but that didn’t mean it was easy. _Dear Mr. Malfoy, I-_ No. Not “dear.” _Mr. Malfoy, I-_ Or maybe “Lucius”? _Lucius, I was thinking about the other day,_ or _about our last meeting,_ or-

Settling on the message took another day. Eventually, she decided on something straight to the point. Brief enough that he could ignore it if he wanted, or easily pretend not to recognize its source. That would be fine. She could pretend none of it had ever happened. She told herself.

What she sent was:

_Can I see you? –H._

The owl returned in a couple of hours.

_Thursday at 4. My office in the Icarus complex, 42 Diagon Alley._ – _L._

Lucius Malfoy had an office? That was new. Probably part of the new post-war order, keeping his files somewhere the Ministry could access them. That’s what Hermione would have done, anyway, if she were in charge of letting reformed Death Eaters back into politics.

She knew Oliver could tell she was jittery that night. This was the first time they’d managed to get together all week, and even so Hermione was so caught up in her head that she couldn’t come for him at first. He gamely persisted, head between her legs. Hermione held out for as long as she could, and then she gave in to the shameful wisp of impulse. She closed her eyes tight. She pulled her hands away from his head, gripping the sheets, so that she could forget that his hair was short and brown. She imagined that the lips and tongue working so familiarly against her belonged to a crueller mouth, thin-lipped and given to superiority. And before she could do much more than sink into the imagining, she was coming in waves, her whole body seizing up, and Oliver was grinning up at her with sweat-spiked hair, licking the corner of his mouth.

Thursday rolled around, tense with anticipation and something like dread. Work was mechanical that day, an exercise in checking her watch.

She got to the building in Diagon Alley early and had to pace outside on the street for a few minutes in order to go in on time. She didn’t want to embarrass herself by seeming too eager.

There was a security wizard at the entrance. She told him she was here to see Lucius Malfoy, and he gestured her to the lift. “Third floor.”

The first surprise, on exiting the lift, was that she was in a waiting room. The second surprise was that Lucius Malfoy had a secretary. It was probably silly to be embarrassed by this—why should the secretary think to judge her for anything? But Hermione couldn’t help wondering if Lucius had booked her into his official calendar. And if so, what he’d called the meeting.

The secretary was a young man with spectacles, wearing impeccably cut grey robes. He gave Hermione a distracted sort of look—he’d been busy writing. “Miss Granger?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Malfoy’s ready for you, you can go right in.” And he gestured down the short hall.

Hermione approached the door, a whole host of last-minute doubts crowding in. Had this whole thing been a very foolish idea? Should she have worn something different? What if he-

The door swung open as she reached it, and she jumped a bit. Lucius wasn’t right there, though, and her heart slowed a little—he was across the room at his desk, lowering his wand. Pale eyes met hers. “Come in, Miss Granger.”

She stepped in, shutting the door carefully behind her. “Mr. Malfoy.”

There was a silence, where he looked at her and she felt her heart thudding. “Sit down,” he finally said, nodding at the chair in front of his desk. Hermione did, feeling oddly like a school-girl again. _That_ was an uncommon feeling these days.

He was looking at her over steepled hands. “Miss Granger,” he said again, and it was as if he was savouring the name, just a little. She felt as if she could feel his eyes, moving slowly over her. Her mind was going to short-circuit soon, go off to that place where she would evaporate into presentness, do anything he said-

Then he said, “We should talk.”

She felt the words hit her, bringing her back down to earth. “Talk?” she managed.

“Yes. Talk.” And the corners of his mouth showed some amusement. Maybe she was being funny. “About this.”

“This.”

“Yes. What is it you want, Miss Granger?”

The question hung in the air.

Hermione felt herself begin to shrink a little, hunching in. This had been a mistake. A terrible, terrible-

Lucius’s eyebrows rose. “Perhaps I said that wrong.” She wondered what her face must look like. “Come here,” he said. “And talk to me properly. I feel as if I’m interviewing you, when you sit there.”

She stood, stepping closer to the desk. He beckoned her round the side—she felt she was being coaxed, like a nervous animal. A deer, maybe, or a rabbit. Now she was sitting up on his desk, just to the side of his chair. Where she could face him, and the outer side of her calf could fall against his knee.

“That’s better,” he said. And she had to agree. “Now. As I was starting to ask. I’d like to—before anything _else_ —hear a little bit about what you want from me. And say a few things myself. Because,” and the hard mouth quirked with a lighter amusement than she was used to seeing there, “as much as I have enjoyed ravishing the Gryffindor darling of the wizarding world, there’s only so villainous that I’m prepared to be without… _deliberate_ permission.” The smile lost some of its amusement. “And I’m not—the easiest plaything, to pick up and put down again.”

Ah. Hermione heard the subtext. He wasn’t sure yet that she knew what she was doing. He wanted to make sure she genuinely wanted this. He was worried, perhaps, that this was some self-destructive phase, on her part, or a sudden and unexamined whim. Or that if sweet, gentle Hermione Granger got out of her depth, she might blame him for all of it and go running to the good guys.

She smiled at him. “That’s fair. I’m—well, for what it’s worth, I’ve always taken _very_ good care of my playthings. I’m conscientious that way.” She looked down at her knees, because she wasn’t quite bold enough to look him in the eyes while she said such a thing. “But,” she added, “I’m not sure that that’s how I’d describe you, for what it’s worth. You’re not a _thing_. And,” she frowned, feeling her eyebrows come down as she considered whether she was going to say it. She shifted the angle of her knee, bringing her leg closer against his. Human contact. “And I’m not playing a game.”

His hand slid around her calf. She looked up again to meet his eyes—half-lidded as he considered her. “You’re aware,” he said, “that I’m a married man.” She nodded. “And a former Death Eater.” She nodded. “And a pureblooded aristocrat with no doubt ill-gotten riches stretching back to the Dark Ages; not to mention a son your own age.” She nodded again. “And that none of that is going to change. I’m also a terrible snob about wine, I have a helpless interest in historical landscaping, and I’ve been told I snore.” She was smiling properly now, and she nodded a final time. He squeezed, gently, with the hand on her leg. “I need you to say it out loud, Miss Granger.”

“Call me Hermione.”

There was a touch of warmth in the blue eyes, now, as much as challenge. “If I must. But say it out loud, Hermione.”

She scooted forward a little, to lean in and look him fully in the eyes. “Alright. I’m fine with all of that. You don’t scare me. At least not in a bad way.” She could feel herself blushing. “And I’ll tell you if you ever do. And I want you specifically, Lucius Malfoy. To keep… ravishing me. Please.”

The corners of his mouth twitched up. Hermione wondered if he might actually smile, a proper smile, and how that would make her feel. Instead, he reached to grip her other leg as well. “Good,” he said. “That wasn’t so hard. Now shift over. And lift up this skirt.”

She scooted until she was right in front of him, her legs out to either side of his lap. And, biting her lip and fighting an urge to squirm, she lifted the hem of her skirt up as high as she could.

She could feel him looking her over. “Bold,” he murmured, and she resisted an urge to flinch when she felt something—was that—yes, the tip of his wand was running along the centre of her knickers. Which were black, and lacey. “Pretty,” he added, “but rather unsuited to a meeting in my office. Don’t you think? Hardly… businesswear. They’ll need to go.”

At the sudden cold, when he Vanished the knickers, she did flinch and her knees drew in. His hand gripped her leg. “Did I say you could move?” He waited until she answered.

“N-no.” She returned her legs to where they’d been.

“Good.” His gaze returned to where she was now entirely exposed for him. “Now. This is a pretty cunt, Miss Granger.” She held utterly still as he moved fingers musingly over her. She wondered if she was trembling visibly. “I’ve taken a fair liking to it. Brief as my acquaintance with it was, against that sink. There will be plenty of time to work on that.” She loved the way he talked. He made it sound like they were at a meeting, like he was dictating a formal letter. “I find myself wondering now, though, how obedient it is.” He looked up to meet her eyes whenever he said the filthiest words, like now. “Is your pretty cunt obedient, Hermione?”

She swallowed, and nodded.

“Suppose I used only my fingers. Would it come for me, if I beckoned?”

Some minutes later, it turned out it would.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience with the long update delay, everyone. Life is mad at the moment, and I can't promise any regularity, but I have no plans to abandon this piece at the moment. Comments, kudos, etc., are always deeply welcome, as the feedback and knowing that people enjoy the writing is really what motivates me to keep on with it (I am a sorry and a simple creature).
> 
> As for the story, this chapter solves some problems and introduces others. I'm getting to know both characters better, and I think they're both flawed human beings, but why would we want to read about them if they weren't? That said: I know they've got some issues. Solving those will be part of the story, never fear.

Chapter Three

Lucius Malfoy became a distraction, and then a habit. And Hermione was beginning to worry that people would notice. At least, that’s what she worried about when she wasn’t busy being distracted by her new habit. It was a lot.

Take her workplace. Gail, whose office was the next door down from Hermione’s, had to be noticing _something_. There were only so many times that it made sense for Lucius Malfoy to drop into a Junior Undersecretary’s office to “confirm a detail” or “drop off a file for Mr. Pendleton’s report.”

Sometimes Lucius was only there to tell Hermione where and when to meet him later. Which, she supposed, _was_ “confirming a detail.” They managed to see each other every week or so, usually at this point in discreet hotel rooms.

Once he had stepped into her office just to give her a box of chocolates, with a carefully bored expression and the news that he was leaving on a family holiday for the next two weeks. She had shared the chocolates with Ginny that night, watching a very silly movie and drinking too much wine and trying not to feel things.

Several times, though, “dropping off a file” meant Lucius turning up at her lunch break and casting a silencing ward on the door even as he was stepping into the room. They didn’t have long; but it didn’t take long, for him to sit her up on the edge of her own desk and fuck her like he wanted to possess her from the inside out, like her breasts bouncing where he’d torn open her blouse and her legs clamped around his hips were as desperately necessary for him as for her.

He never kissed her on the mouth, she’d noticed. He would kiss her on the jaw, her breasts, the curving shell of her ear. He liked biting her neck, especially when he was already buried inside her. But he didn’t truly, properly kiss her.

She tried not to let it bother her. Which led her to focusing on other things, like whether Oliver was mad at her or merely as busy with Quidditch as he claimed. Or whether Gail offering her tea more frequently in the past few weeks was code for “I’ve noticed your torrid affair and I give you my blessing.” Probably not; Gail was overwhelmingly fond of tea.

There was also Lucius’s workplace to worry about, of course. But she generally figured that the schedule there, and whether his ever-bland secretary Martin was putting any clues together, was Lucius’s job to worry about.

Hermione’s job, on the occasional days when they still met at his office, was to surrender. She was currently accomplishing this by kneeling under Lucius’s desk, wearing nothing but a blindfold. He was sitting with his knees to either side of her, and his hands were working soothingly through her hair, doing wonderful things at her temples. The rest of her consciousness had narrowed to the task of pleasing Lucius without her vision. Everything was magnified—the solidity of him in her hands, the taste of his skin as she carefully worked her tongue.

She was so focused on this that it took her very much by surprise when his hands suddenly clenched in her hair. Hard. “Stop,” he said, “stop for a moment, pet.” She leaned back, and she felt him move gentle fingers across her lips, presumably to help her avoid drooling blindly down herself. He was oddly quiet.

Then she heard it too. A knocking on the door, sharp and peremptory. This was followed by a sickeningly familiar voice: “Father? Why is this locked?” and, more distantly, “Martin, are you sure he hasn’t left?”

“ _Fuck_.” The word was quiet enough that Lucius was probably saying it to himself. She heard his chair scrape back, and the warmth of his legs was gone. She felt horribly exposed, the reality of her position dawning- “Take off the blindfold,” he said softly.

She pulled it off. She was looking up at him, and she knew her mute terror must be clear.

“I’ll Disillusion you,” he said, “but you’ll have to stay utterly quiet.” There was no humour in his face, but no anger either. He was moving with palpable haste, buttoning his trousers and straightening his robes. When she nodded her assent, he tapped the top of her head with his wand, and the coolness of invisibility washed over her. Then he was striding out of sight, towards the door.

She heard the handle turn, and then his voice: “Draco. I was busy. Is something wrong?” 

What a Lucius thing to say. _I was busy_ , with no further explanation. There was something elegant about the man’s sheer nerve.

“Busy? With something more important than your beloved _son_?” It was hard to tell without seeing his face whether Draco was joking. “You said we could practice for my interview if I stopped by.”

A sigh from Lucius. “You’re right. I did. I’d forgotten. Give me a moment to straighten the place up, I’ve been… staging competitive niffler racing, there’s fur everywhere.”

He said it with such a serious deadpan that Hermione bit back a half-hysterical giggle. He and Draco were being so… affectionate? Playful, at the very least. It was miles away from what she’d have expected of the Malfoy men.

“Well, of course, please put the nifflers away.”

And now Lucius’s footsteps were returning. There was a rummaging on the desk, then he crouched down to her level. He was holding out her wand. She took it, in her almost-invisible fingers. Disillusionment was odd; she was a ripple, a wrongness in the air under his desk.

He was staring at a point some couple of inches above where her eyes actually were. “I’ll grab your clothes for you,” he said, very softly. “And I’ll put up a quick silencing ward for you to Disapparate. I—very much don’t want him to realise anyone was here. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

He held his open hand out. “Where’s your face?”

She obeyed without thinking, leaning her cheek into his fingers.

He ran the pad of his thumb very gently over her cheekbone, then across her lips. “I’d like to come see you later. Leaving you like this wasn’t the plan. Send me an owl?”

She nodded, and then, when his fingers squeezed a bit, murmured, “Yes, Lucius,” against his thumb.

“Good girl.” He found her invisible hair and gave it a little tug, and then he rose to his feet. Hermione heard papers shifting, and she saw him move the chair. Then her clothes landed on the floor in front of her. She gathered them up in her arms.

“Seriously,” came Draco’s voice from the corridor, “I can come back another time if you’re too busy-“

“No,” Lucius called, “it won’t be a moment.” Then a muttered silencing spell, and: “Hermione, go.”

Ignoring a strange sort of ache in her chest, for there was nothing to be upset about and every reason to hurry, Hermione clutched her wand, thought of home, and—with a small _pop_ —she went.

She had to lie on her couch for a while at home, just breathing, before she could pull herself together to send him an owl. It had something to do with the mind-space she’d been in, the way she’d been suddenly torn from it. _Leaving you like this wasn’t the plan_. How did he usually leave her?

He must have sent her owl back almost immediately. The message it brought was unexpected: _I don’t want you to have to meet me all over again. What if I came to yours? Let me know if you don’t have a Floo. Otherwise expect me at 7._ - _L_

Lucius was coming _here_? To her little flat, and the cheap, rumpled sheets, and the tiny bathroom where Oliver left a spare toothbrush these days for convenience?

Hermione did have a Floo-connected fireplace, so she didn’t send anything back. She got up to put on a bathrobe, and she tied back her hair and made tea. Defiantly, she didn’t clean the flat up. If he wanted a sudden insight into her space, that was just what he would get. She left Oliver’s toothbrush where it was.

At 7 on the dot, her fireplace flared to life and Lucius stepped out, fastidiously brushing some ash from his hair. The size of him was a shock, that Lucius bloody Malfoy should be looming here, that the breadth of his shoulders and the haughty tilt of that head should be contained in her living room.

He looked around, eyes finally settling on Hermione and the listless way she was sprawled along the couch.

“Ah,” he said, and stepped closer. “This is how you live, is it?”

She raised her eyebrow at him. She could be haughty too.

He actually smiled. This was dreadfully unfair of him. She’d been in a grey state ever since leaving his office, a haze of nameless tension, but now he was here with his blue eyes and he was taking in everything about her and he was _smiling_ for once, actually smiling. He reached out and, very gently, he touched his finger to her cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier, pet.” And he waited, drinking in her expression. She wondered sometimes if he knew how powerless she was against his eyes, how the smallest slant of light could hit them and make him suddenly beautiful.

Somehow, she found herself getting to her feet.

His arms slid around her, and he pulled her in close so her chin was pressed to his shoulder. His lips moved against her ear, brushing a couple of kisses. “Take your clothes off and show me where your bed is.”

She untied her bathrobe and let it fall to the floor. Then she leaned into Lucius, needing to feel him even closer, winding her arms around his neck and playing her fingers through the silk of his hair. He kissed her cheek, her jaw, as if he couldn’t help himself, and his hand moved comfortably down the curve of her back, cupped around her arse—“Bed,” he reminded her, and he might have been reminding himself too, for he released her and gave her a little push.

She took his hand and pulled him along to the bedroom, not that it was very far. He didn’t look around, as he had with the living room. His eyes were all for her as she sank onto the bed, and he had already begun to undo his tie. He got as far as taking his shirt off before she was reaching to pull him down with her.

He followed obligingly enough, pressing her underneath him and beginning a row of kisses up the line of her shoulder. She felt the gust of breath when she unzipped his trousers and slipped a hand in to wrap her fingers around his stiffening cock. He shifted, and then she felt his own hand between them, searching down her stomach. He reached low enough and slid a finger into her, and a second, and she knew she must be very wet from how easy it was and how he smiled against her shoulder.

He moved up onto an elbow, then, to look down into her face, and she thought that was what he was going to comment on. _You’re dripping for me, little one_ , or _My, someone has missed me_. And she was overwhelmed, suddenly, by the fact that this was her bed, her very own, and Lucius Malfoy was in it, lying heavy on top of her and about to tell her how slick she was around his fingers. He didn’t say anything, though. His eyes were dark in the dimness of this room, dark and close and she could feel him breathing, they were breathing together pressed chest-to-chest, in and out and he was so very _broad_ , large enough that perhaps she’d simply disappear here beneath him-

He leaned in and kissed her. His lips were on hers, and this was the first time she’d ever kissed Lucius Malfoy, face to face and everything a taste and a wet softness, and she must have made a noise, certainly she clenched around those fingers that were still buried inside her for they moved very deliberately and there was a chuckle from somewhere deep in his chest, and then he was kissing her harder and she grew too drunk on him to think straight. There was a moment, at some point, where his tongue was in her mouth and her legs up around his hips and he sank into her with slow thrusts; and then an ache within her that kindled white-hot as their kisses grew animal-hungry and their movement frantic; and he only really stopped kissing her much later, after it was over and they were panting for air.

He rolled off of her and sank into the pillow beside her. Sweaty looked good on Lucius. So did kiss-roughened lips. Hermione could feel her own lips burning again at the thought, and she ghosted a fingertip over them. She wondered if he knew what he’d done, if any of it had been conscious.

He was a little unknowable now, taking in her bedroom through half-lidded eyes as his breathing slowed. She thought she saw him notice her bookshelf, full to the brim, and the pile of clothes lying half-spilt out of her closet. The small, cluttered desk.

She was feeling boneless, herself, and wrung out like a used rag. A very pleasantly used rag. She moved enough to lean her head against his arm. Not a caress and, Merlin forbid, not cuddling. Just leaning.

After a little while, he sat up. “Be right back.” And he stood up and left the room. He seemed to be headed for the right door to the loo, though, so she stayed where she was. When he returned, he sat on the edge of the bed and reached to pull his trousers on again. She was trying to work up the nerve to ask if he was leaving so soon, and he had moved on to his shirt, when he said, “Who’s the spare toothbrush for?”

He said it very casually, almost a smirk in his voice, and the light that played across his back as he did up his buttons didn’t falter.

“Oliver,” she said. “Oliver Wood.”

He turned his head, an eyebrow raised just slightly. “The Quidditch fellow?”

She nodded.

“Not bad,” he said. As if it were normal for him to evaluate her taste in other men. Then he rose to his feet. “I’ll need to get back, pet.”

Probably Draco again. Hermione didn’t let herself think the other name, not if she could avoid it. “If you must,” she said. And then, because she couldn’t help it, she allowed herself a bit of a pout, and a long stretch on the bed, just to show him how very much more desirable his company could be if he stayed here.

His eyes did follow her movement, and he knelt back onto the side of the bed. “I almost forgot,” he said. “I brought something for you.” He pulled a slim box out of his pocket and placed it on her little bedside table. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Wear it for me on Monday?”

And then, all too soon, he left.

This was the other thing about Lucius. He never kissed her, not really; perhaps the events of this evening had been a fever dream. And he never spent the night with her.

Hermione opened the box to find a delicate pair of lace knickers. Screwing her face up, quite abruptly, she tore them in two. And then tore the pieces apart again, for good measure. And threw it all against the wall, where it fluttered to the ground with a lack of any satisfying crash or closure.

She could always cast a repair charm on them before Monday.


End file.
